


Moor and Mountain

by pallas_or_bust



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Christmas fic, Fantasy AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-26
Updated: 2014-12-26
Packaged: 2018-03-03 15:34:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2856056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pallas_or_bust/pseuds/pallas_or_bust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot set in the same universe as "Ward" following Monica in her job as a nurse over the Christmas holiday. Morse makes a cameo appearance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moor and Mountain

**Author's Note:**

> This fic (and "Ward") were both inspired by the lovely athena_crikey's "Effigy." She's since started expanding the universe further with "Phoenix." Just to be clear, my stuff and her stuff are in alternate continuities, even though we're both playing with Morse's world as a paranormal/ supernatural AU.
> 
> Happy holidays to you all!

Monica drew the short straw, so she is the one working the overnight shift on Christmas Eve when the old man is brought in. Found curled up in a field by a shepherd’s dog, soaked to the skin, fingers and toes blue, he’s lucky he didn’t get eaten by something. This close to the winter solstice, things in the night do a lot more than just go _bump_.

The man’s not even dressed for the weather. He’s wearing house slippers, for God’s sake. Monica gets him in a dry hospital gown and under an electric blanket and begins asking the usual questions: what is his name? where does he live? who should they contact? But the old man refuses to answer, just sits there and shakes his head.

There are a few possibilities for why he’s not answering, and so Monica begins the laborious process of troubleshooting. She checks carefully for possible head injuries: there are none. She waits five minutes and then asks a white nurse to come in, in case he’s above talking to a black woman: the other nurse encounters the same stony silence Monica did. She does her rounds again, since hypothermic patients can sometimes be a little addled at first: there is no improvement. She even tunes into her sixth sense, her witch’s sense, to make sure there are no bewitchments upon him: he is clean, except for the faint aftertaste of a will o’ the wisp’s glamour. Doubtless the unearthly light lured him outside initially, but it does not explain the memory loss. Most likely this is a straightforward case of senile dementia, a diagnosis that does absolutely no good as far as finding the man’s next-of-kin goes.

In the midst of her contemplation the bell rings twice. That’s for a pressing difficulty. She strides off to assist at a speed calculated to not alarm any of the other patients while still getting her to where she’s needed with haste. It’s the nurse’s walk, and it’s almost the first thing she learned when she joined up.

The emergency—a woman who slipped on the ice and broke her ankle yesterday, and became combative upon learning she was not to get any more morphine—dealt with, Monica is called into the children’s ward to help with changing the sheets and generally tidying up. They’re woefully short-staffed thanks to the holiday, and the nurses left are doing double duty.

Of course, they have fewer patients than usual, since nobody schedules elective procedures for just before the holidays, but those cases that do appear always have tragic undertones: _sick on Christmas, can you believe it_? And then there are the various do-gooders getting underfoot, the tribes of awkward well-wishers from out of town, not to mention all the decorations: false-cheery tinsel, bows, paper cutouts in the shape of evergreens, and annoying jingly bells. And the carolers! If Monica hears “Ding Dong Merrily on High” one more time…

Morse had argued with her on that one, surprisingly. Some of the carols—“What Child is This?” for starters—have genuine power, wards against the dark and cold threaded into their very harmonies. But he’d also sheepishly conceded that the power did not extend to “Jingle Bells” and so Monica had claimed the moral victory.

It’s another hour before she returns to her Joe Bloggs and finds him snoring placidly, his temperature a comfortable, if not ideal, 97.2. In what is supposed to be her smoke break she goes through the pockets of the sodden clothes in which he arrived. He was not carrying a wallet when he left his home. He did, however, have a locket around his neck, surprisingly delicate in contrast to his knotty fingers and general air of solidity. Monica pries open the clasp and finds a scrap of old black-and-white photograph: a couple in bride’s and groom’s clothing, beaming in front of a church. She’s no great shakes at faces, but something about the eyes and cheekbones makes her think that the groom in the picture is her Joe Bloggs.

Morse sidles into the staff room around half ten, hair damp, bearing a mug.

“I thought you were answering the telephones down at the nick?” Monica asks; it isn’t unusual for Morse to pop in sometimes when she’s on break, but Morse actually volunteered to work today so the other men could spend time with their families. This despite the fact that Morse has a family of his own. Monica suspects he purposefully torpedoed his own chance of spending Christmas dinner with his cruel stepmum and perennially-disappointed father.

The line of Morse’s mouth sours. “I was. Harkins came in to relieve me. Think he had some sort of… family dispute. Wanted to be alone.” He holds up the mug. “I brought coffee.”

Monica sips it gratefully: it is a far cry better than the swill the nurses usually get. When he remembers that he’s her boyfriend, which is not as often as she would like, Morse is capable of surprising sweetness. _And_ he’s wearing the scarf she gave him, which always gives her a sense of satisfaction.

“Still no snow?” she asks.

He shakes his head. “Some freezing fog, some sleet. Roads are slick. I’m surprised you haven’t gotten any motor accidents in here.”

“Small blessings, I suppose. We’ve just had the one admittance all night.” She fills him in on their mystery guest. Any sort of puzzle will have Morse sniffing the air like a dog that smells the Christmas ham, and this one is no exception. “He’s asleep now, but I thought maybe you could speak to him in the morning if he’s feeling up to it. And then there’s this.” Monica proffers the locket.

Morse takes it eagerly, examining photograph with keen eyes. “This was taken at St. Barnabas. It’s a Catholic church in the west part of town.”

“How can you—“

“The carvings on the door. Very distinctive. My favorite record shop was just down the street.” He glances at his watch. “Eleven fifteen. I can make it there before midnight mass, ask the priest…”

“You don’t honestly think the priest who married them is still—“

“No, but I know that people don’t change parishes unless they move out of town. They can at least get me started.”

Usually Monica would object; traveling alone at night this time of year is not an act for the sane. But the population of Oxford has been on high alert ever since the events of Guy Fawkes Day, and several potentially serious infestations have already been nipped in the bud thanks to paranoia and good luck. As such, there are fewer truly dangerous creatures abroad in Oxfordshire than is usual for this time of year. Then there is the Jag: Thursday has been overseeing the installation of manual-trigger wards on all police cars after noticing their vulnerability, and the Jag was among the first to get the upgrade. Morse will also have the radio, to call for backup if he needs it. And backup will be plentiful, since many of the churches are running patrols of their own to protect those going to and from Christmas mass. Plus, there is the unquestionable influence of the holiday itself. As much as Monica detests all the saccharine carrying on, there is no denying the power of the holly and the ivy strung up all around town.

Then there is the unquestionable fact of Morse himself. He may be downright forgetful of dates arranged, may require reminding that it is a Sunday and that the shops aren’t open, may frequently neglect to tuck in his shirt more from absentmindedness from sloth, but when he is on a case he acquires the concentration of a chess grandmaster and the endurance of a steam engine. So, instead of trying to dissuade him, Monica simply pecks him on the cheek and says, “Be careful.”

He slips off into the night. She returns to her rounds. The mysterious Joe Bloggs is still asleep, and her other patients are presenting only routine difficulties, nothing she can’t handle alone. Altogether, a rare tranquil night, about as routine as her job gets were it not for the faint concern for Morse humming along in the back of her mind.

He reappears shortly after one in the morning, a family of five in tow. The kids are all sleepy but excited to still be awake at this forbidden hour. The adults merely look grey.

“Monica, allow me to introduce Quentin Shoregrave. Mister Shoregrave, Monica has been treating the man we believe may be your father.”

“It’s him,” Shoregrave says abruptly, “if he had the locket, it has to be him. How is he, miss?”

“He’s resting comfortably. My guess is that he’ll be ready for discharge tomorrow if all continues to go well. Does he live with you, or—“

“By himself since Mum died.” Shoregrave shakes his head. “Didn’t want to stay with us, even though we’ve got the spare room. Can we—can we see him?”

“Only to confirm his identity. Right now he needs his rest.”

“Of course, of course.”

A moment later, after Monica lets Shoregrave peek into the dimly-lit room, the man stands in the hallway with his hand over his face and tears glistening in his eyes. “That’s him,” he whispers. “That’s him.”

“He’s pulling through very well.”

“Oh, I’m sure—I’m sure you’re taking very good care of him, miss.” Quentin looks horrified that he may have insinuated anything else. “I just—he was doing so well, before. You know. With his memory. I can’t believe—you always think, that’s the sort of thing that happens to other people, the kind of tragedy you read about in the paper.. God—so close to losing him, and on Christmas, at that… Jesus Christ, it doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s a Christmas miracle, really, that you found him out there, and another miracle that you found us so quickly.”

Monica thinks, _it was hard work and good luck, and Morse tracking you down_. “You can pick him up tomorrow. In the meantime, how about you go home? Get some sleep.” She smiles graciously, accepts the man’s handshake, and leaves him to his family.

Christmas miracle. Honestly.

The miracle is that there’s Christmas at all. Humanity is beset by demons internal and external, monsters on all sides. The logical response would be to hunker down, to strip life down to the cold necessities and focus upon survival. The deep winter holidays take _effort_ : to cross the perilous countryside to be with family, to strike out in the night singing, to go to church at midnight— _midnight!_ Frivolous, purposeless, foolish and dangerously sentimental these actions seem, to one who cares only for survival. As foolish and sentimental as Morse’s choice to track down that man’s family tonight. Monica would bet anything it was so the children could spend Christmas with their grandfather, so their holiday could be fully of joy instead of fear. An empty gesture, perhaps, a concession to emotion in a race that cannot afford it.

Yet such empty gestures are essential for the preservation of, if not the human race, then what makes it most worth preserving. Frivolity, sentimentality—they defy the darkness, more than iron or silver ever could. Sometimes, she forgets that.

Morse had been waiting patiently in the background, but now that the family has left he ghosts forward and whispers in her ear, “Merry Christmas.” She laces her fingers in his, giving his hand a squeeze.

"What's that you're humming?" he asks. "Is that... is that 'Jingle Bells'?"

Monica gives a coy twist of her head. "I'll never tell."

Together they watch through the window as the Shoregrave family slips and slides out to their car, and outside, the rain turns to snow.


End file.
